Morse Taper Removal

[Alan Worland 1Participant @alanworland1]

[Alan Worland 1Participant @alanworland1]

I have various bits of tooling which use the No 2 taper on my lathe and milling attachment, a variety of collets, fly cutter and boring head, all of which use a drawbar to pull the device into the socket.

This is all works fine and I try not to do the drawbar up too tight, but I dont want it to slip. How tight is tight enough?

Is there a more considerate and gentle method of removing the tooling without wacking the end of the drawbar? which seems a bit crude!

 

Alan

[John CoatesParticipant @johncoates48577]

Remember the Morse socket is there to grip the taper, the drawbar just stops it withdrawing if it catches. I tighten mine up finger tight plus a little bit with a spanner, no more than 1/16th of a turn and that’s it – I’ve never had a problem

[Alan Worland 1Participant @alanworland1]

I think I might be seriously over tightening things!

Thanks – I will go easy on the drawbar nuts.

 

Alan

 

Come to think of it I have drilled some pretty large holes from the tailstock relying only on the taper and never had a chuck move.

[Jim GreetheadParticipant @jimgreethead]

Ah – I think I might have been overdoing it (if a job’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing).

 

 

I am always concerned that the drawbar will unscrew. I have found it loose a couple of times but that might be due to AADD (adult attention deficit disorder).

 

Even tightening 1/16 turn means that it will still need to be whacked but maybe with a smaller hammer.

 

Is there any clever method that does not involve a hammer?

 

Jim

 

[Terry LaneParticipant @terrylane]

‘Is there any clever method that does not involve a hammer?’

Well yes, you can whack it with anything that has enough weight really!

[BERTOParticipant @berto]

Hi Alan .

You only need to nip them up and even if it did spin the thread of the drawbar is such that it should pull it in tighter as the direction of rotation of the cutting tool if it catches and spins would be opposite to the drawbar thread .

If your Mill or lathe has an external thread on the end of the spindle where the drawbar pulls up against you could make a backing out nut .

This is nothing more than a piece of hex or round bar bored to produce a blind hole and an internal thread cut the same as the thread as the end of the spindle .

By loosening the drawbar 1 turn then screwing the backing out nut over the end of the spindle it will screw down untill it touches the end of the draw bar , then simply tighten the nut and it will push on the end of the draw bar pushing the taper out of its socket .

I think i first saw this on a youtube video that was for the X 2 mill and maybe it was on the little machine shop website – not a 100% certain but it may have been when i was watching the belt drive conversion video or similar .

 

IAN

[Dennis RParticipant @dennisr]

Try some chuck removal wedges from somewhere like

http://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Chucks/Wedges-Drifts

they work fine for me.

Dennis

[Alan Worland 1Participant @alanworland1]

I must admit I usually hit the drawbar nut with a copper/hide mallet and it comes out ok

On the mill attachment I tend to try and support the column before whacking.

I think basically I am over tightening.

I like the idea of a jacking out fitting on the opposite end although I would have to do a bit of modifying.

Dont the wedges cause damage? I have only experienced wedges for removing track rod ends – never again!

 

Alan

[Dennis RParticipant @dennisr]

Alan

I have a set of JT6 wedges for 2MT and a set of JT3 wedges on which the gap had to be ground a little wider to fit 3MT. Put the opposing wedges in and squeeze together with a G-clamp and the tapers part easily.

Have been using them for a few years and have no damage to either lathe or mill.

Dennis

[Jim GreetheadParticipant @jimgreethead]

Thanks Tel, you have set me thinking …

 

On my mill, the drawbar has a nut on top. I wonder if I could make a new drawbar in which the nut is replaced by a knurled cylinder for hand tightening (aluminium to minimise the moment of inertia so it does not unscrew) and top it with a small slide hammer for removal.

 

If it works, it will save bending down for the lump hammer. I have heard that middle age is where nothing less than a dollar is worth bending down for, and I am well past that.

 

Jim

 

[David LittlewoodParticipant @davidlittlewood51847]

My Emco mill has a variant of Ian’s method above; the drawbar has a hex socket at the outer end (which also serves for tightening), and the backing out nut has a hole in it large enough to take the hex key but small enough to ensure it bears down on the drawbar’s socket end, and also has some spanner flats. Then by putting a hex key in the backing out nut, and turning this anticlockwise, while at the same time applying a spanner to tighten the nut, the grip is broken and the taper tool is removable. This avoids the drawbar being tightened by the nut, and also avoids the need to lock the spindle to get suficient downforce.

 

You can easily make such a drawbar yourself by turning down a hex socket capscrew and Loctiting it to a hole in the end of a steel rod, appropriately threaded at the other end. I had to do this 20 years ago to make an imperial drawbar as Emco (no surprise) only did a metric one; it has never come apart in that time.

 

David

Edited By David Littlewood on 15/12/2011 01:55:23

[BERTOParticipant @berto]

David

That’s an even better way to do it because you could leave the backing out nut fitted to the Mill as you still have access to the drawbar using the hex key .

I will be doing this mod eventually to both my X2 and Hafco HM46 Mill – Although the HM46 will need the end of the spindle machined and a thread cut as it is splined all the way to the end and hopefully not hardened !

 

Ian

 

[Jim GreetheadParticipant @jimgreethead]

I tried it, and it works. So far it is only a lashup using a bit of threaded rod, an aluminium disk from the “come in handy” box and a lump of steel for the hammer. But it does the job.

 

And now it just needs to be tidied up (when I have time)

 

Jim

 

Here is the URL to the YouTube video of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_54ToadfFU0&feature=youtu.be

[Douglas JohnstonParticipant @douglasjohnston98463]

Most impressive, this looks to be a very good simple idea and the youtube video makes it so clear. As a matter of interest how easy is it to make and post such a video on youtube?

Doug.

 

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

I have looked at the video, and do not like it.

 

The problem is that there is still a shock force needed to disengage the taper, and this shock is still transmitted through the bearings. Now I am not a trained engineer so know very little about what the bearings can withstand, but I do think that this shock load cannot do the bearings any good.

 

In MEW 96, Feb 2004, George McLatchie came up with a solution for the Warco MiniMill, and presumably usable for other X2 type milling machines which prevented this shock loading by keeping all the forces involved inside the spindle. Essentially, the idea was to create an additional closed end nut which would screw onto the end of the spindle (for the MiniMill it did require the existing nut to be thinned to provide sufficient thread). Through the closed end of the extra nut was fitted a tapped hole into which was inserted a normal bolt.

 

To disengage the taper, the spindle was first locked (a locking system was already supplied on this machine), then the drawbar slackened by a few millimetres. Next the additional nut was added, the unlocking bolt screwed down until it contacted the head of the drawbar. Further tightening of the bolt forced down the drawbar thus forcing the taper to separate.

 

No shock loading and all the forces are contained within the spindle.

 

For what it is worth, a similar device will be made at some time for my lathe, especially as there is already sufficient thread on the end of the spindle thus reducing the work required.

Regards,

 

Peter G. Shaw

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

I don’t know if I am doing things correctly, my Rexon mill has a threaded nose on the spindle, on the is a threaded nut with three splines to take a C spanner, initially the only use I found for this was to hold a flanged no.,2 MT that fits in the 3MT of the spindle, I then found that it worked well if I just nipped up the draw bar, then screwed the nut down on top of the chuck(except the Jacobs one, its on a Jacobs taper, and not held by the draw bar), to remove the collet chuck, I loosen the draw bar, lock the spindle, then screw the nut on the nose down, out comes the chuck. I also use the thread on the nose to scew a large dia fly cutter, no draw bar needed. Ian S C

[TomfileryParticipant @tomfilery]

I have an Axminster Micro Mill and was not at all happy about pounding the drawbar with a hammer to release the M2 taper collets. In fact, when I first fitted my Vertex milling chuck, I couldn’t get the damned thing to move at all!

 

My (entirely inelegant) solution was to tap the top section of the spindle (which is soft) M12 and which allows me to:- remove the drawbar; pop in a short version of said bar (with a screwdriver slot in the top, allowing it to be screwed into the collect,or chuck); screw in an M12 bolt which is then tightened up and pushes the collet, or chuck, out with a loud bang!

 

With the new Vertex chuck mentioned above, I applied so much force this way that it distorted the 3/8″ dia push rod – but it did come out eventually. I now apply a thin layer of WD40 before fitting collets, or chucks, and have had no problem since.

 

Tom

[DMBParticipant @dmb]

 

Hi all,

Please refer to the “Milling Chucks” thread, my posting of 8 Feb. This will give you my solution to freeing jammed MT2 tapers.

[MICHAEL WILLIAMSParticipant @michaelwilliams41215]

Alan – please look in message box .

[Jim GreetheadParticipant @jimgreethead]

Hi Peter G Shaw,

 

Like you, I have worried for years about the shock load imposed on the bearings by the whacking process.

 

But then as I lay in the twilight zone between sleeping and waking this morning I realised: the bearings in a mill/drill don’t constrain the quill in the vertical direction so they don’t get any shock load.

 

The shock load is actually taken by the rack that controls the vertical movement of the quill in the drilling mode.

 

And that rack can be offloaded by clamping the quill. This puts the load on the head itself. And if the Z axis is clamped, the shock load goes all the way to the floor.

 

Now I am happy

 

Jim

[Jim GreetheadParticipant @jimgreethead]

Hi John Coleman 1

 

Just looked at your system and I like the idea of the captive nut (although I don’t think I am capable of threading the end of the spindle on my machine).

 

But if you replaced the top nut with a handwheel, could you not do away with the spanners?

 

Just grip the chuck at the bottom and tighten the handwheel to install, and reverse to remove.

 

Just a thought

 

Jim

 

[Alan Worland 1Participant @alanworland1]

Michael, That sounds a very controlled way of removing tools – I will consider this as I have the spindle of the lathe and the quill of my milling attachment to cater for.

(sorry I didn’t see your message earlier but I have only just switched on – been in the workshop making a generator for my Stuart No4 to drive)

 

Alan

[Jim GreetheadParticipant @jimgreethead]

I had a lovely time today swapping from Jacobs Chuck to Collet and back again using my new lashup and thinking “what a clever boy I am”.

 

Right up until the collet came loose and the cutter gouged a piece out of the job I was working on.

 

Luckily, Murphy was Xmas shopping so it was not the last cut of a complex piece, and it didn’t ruin the job.

 

So tools in the taper need to be more than hand tightened. Or it needs stronger hands than mine. Or I need to redesign the handwheel … maybe something like those bathroom taps with the cross on the top to give a better purchase.

 

What do you reckon?

 

Jim

 

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Most supprised that the collet came loose, things like that happened when I first started, I had an end mill in the Jacobs chuck, I knew nothing of collet chucks, or anthing else to do with milling. One of the first things I made was a tap wrench, its got a chunk out of it where the chuck fell out. I did learn quickly. Ian S C  ps, I still use the tap wrench, the bit out of the side reminds me to do the job propperly.

Edited By Ian S C on 16/12/2011 10:16:43

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